A Series of Not-So-Unfortunate Events
by 0Shadow Panther0
Summary: Urban Fantasy AU. In which Hidan is a cultist, Kakuzu is an ancient eldritch horror, and Sakura is a doctor who is very, very tired and perhaps mildly intrigued. (Or, Hidan likes to get hurt, Kakuzu likes to do illegal things, and Sakura just wants people to stop bleeding all over the upholstery.)
1. the first event

In which Hidan is a cultist, Kakuzu is an eldritch horror, and Sakura is a doctor who is very, very tired and perhaps mildly intrigued.

* * *

When two men break down her the front door to her clinic exactly seven minutes before closing, Sakura very nearly screams.

One of them is tall, face obscured by a cowl and eyes almost luminous, and the other, apparently unconscious with an arm thrown over his companion's shoulders, is nearly covered in blood. It drips down onto the floor, a trail leading to the growing puddle on the pale linoleum.

"Fix him," says the one not bleeding out.

Sakura, largely buried under several layers of shock, says, with remarkable calmness, "He should go to a hospital."

"No time," he growls, shifting his grip, and some distant, dissociating part of Sakura thinks about the absolute bitch it'll be to get all that blood off of her floor.

She blinks. "This way, then," she says, and leads them to her largest exam room.

"On the table," she orders, slipping on her scrubs and snapping on her gloves. "What can you tell me about his injuries?"

"Lacerations," the man responds, dropping his companion none too gently onto the table. "He'll require stitches."

"Blood type?" Sakura asks.

"Unnecessary."

She pauses, staring at the blood dripping off her table. "Unnecessary," she echoes, half a question.

The man fixes her with a piercing look, eyes luminous under the shadow of his cowl. His sclera, she notes vaguely, are red.

"Okay," Sakura says. She tugs on her mask, grabs a tray of surgical tools from her cabinet, and hands the man a pair of gloves and a towel. "Anesthesia-?"

"Don't worry about it. Too expensive, anyway."

She exhales sharply and quietly wonders what the fuck is going on. "Okay. I need you to mop up the blood so I can see the laceration clearly, and then I'll work."

The man nods and immediately turns back back to the table, wiping one of the wounds with quick, neat movements. The first is of the injuries is a massive gash that starts from just under his right collarbone, crosses over his sternum, and ends at the bottom of his ribs.

Sakura sucks in a sharp breath and cuts away the remains of his shirt, which may or may not have been white at some point but is now so thoroughly drenched in blood that it's nothing but red, and douses the whole thing in peroxide before readying the curved needle and its holder, forceps in her other hand, and gets to work.

Forceps to expose the skin, needle sliding through, tug and tie the thread. Repeat. Blood streams steadily from the wounds, occasionally mopped up by the other man who stands patiently across from her. "Unnecessary," she mumbles under her breath, pausing after the ninth stitch to replace her blood-slicked gloves.

There's at least a dozen stitches for the first laceration alone, five more for the cut at the junction of the man's neck and shoulder, seven for the wound on his thigh, another dozen or so more scattered over the smaller but equally deep cuts on his body.

About forty stitches and an hour and a half later, Sakura stands, staring down at the man on her table that's bled out enough to lose his whole body's worth two time over, who's inexplicably breathing.

God, the _blood_ on her _floor_.

"I- I'm done," she says. Then, with a little more energy, "What the _fuck_."

"Good," the man says stiffly. She looks up at him. His dark clothes are splattered with blood, his dark gray jacket made black and black slacks made blacker. He strips off his gloves and drops them onto the table, then reaches into the pocket of his jacket. "My card," he says shortly, handing Sakura a square of paper. "Send the bill to this address."

She takes it wordlessly. There's exactly two lines on it. The first simply reads 'Kakuzu,' and the second is an address. She doesn't recognize the street name or the postal code, but it's somewhere in the city.

The man- presumably Kakuzu- heaves his companion off the table and over his shoulder like a bag of rice.

"W-wait!" Sakura blurts. "He needs to come back in a week to have the stitches removed."

Kakuzu pauses. "I'll keep that in mind," he says flatly, and leaves.

Sakura stands in the exam room for a long time after that, staring blankly at the empty doorway, and finally sighs and rolls up her sleeves.

It'll likely take the whole night to clean all this blood off her floors.

* * *

Her receptionist nearly has a heart attack when she comes in the next morning, finding Sakura on her hands and knees scrubbing at a rusty trail on the floor, still covered in blood from the night before.

Sakura waves it off, and the poor girl seems all too eager to let go of the event entirely, but, at least, not before calling a cleaning crew to take care of the rest.

She quietly bills the mysterious address and then rest of the week passes like any other week, with a few people coming in with coughs and a broken bone or two, and a few casual check-ups. Most importantly, tall, terrifying men do not barge into her office and bleed profusely over her floor, and by the end of the week, she's almost forgotten about the odd encounter, barely registering the check written to her name that arrives a few days later.

Then they come back.

Her receptionist peeks into her office. "Doctor Haruno," she squeaks. "There are men here to see you."

Sakura blinks. There aren't any appointments scheduled for the rest of the day, and she's been taking the time to clean up some paperwork. "Is it an emergency?"

The younger girl shakes her head. "Something about stitches?" she says hesitantly, and the realization hits Sakura like a freight train.

"Oh," Sakura says. Then, "I'll be right out."

The receptionist scurries off and Sakura makes her way to the waiting room.

She can hear conversation as she walks down the hall, and she pauses just before the door to listen.

"I still don't know why you didn't just fucking fix me up yourself," an unfamiliar voice gripes.

"You know my threads aren't made for delicate work," Kakuzu replies, his deep, rough voice immediately recognizable. Also, 'his threads?'

The other man huffs. "Still," he says, voice a half whine. "Why'd we even have to come back?"

"If you want to tear the stitches out and make everything worse, suit yourself. But if you bleed on our furniture, I'll kill you."

Sakura chooses this time to step out. "Kakuzu?" she says cautiously. "I'm Doctor Haruno."

Kakuzu looks up from his seat- his face is covered again, this time by a plain black surgical mask, shaggy dark hair falling past his shoulders, and his clothes are nearly identical to the ones he wore a week prior, dark and practical- and the silver-haired man next to him is unmistakably the one she stitched together a week ago.

"Holy shit," says the man who, by all accounts, should not be alive. "That's the bitch who put me back together? Fuck, I wish I was awake for that."

There are so, so many things wrong with that, and Sakura struggles with a response for a moment before settling for, "Excuse me?"

"Ignore him," Kakuzu says coolly. "Hidan is an idiot."

"Fuck you," Hidan responds eloquently.

Even seated, Kakuzu finds a decent angle to land a sharp kick to Hidan's shin, and the man swears again.

"Okay," Sakura says, despite the fact that everything about this situation is decidedly not okay, "follow me, then."

She takes them back to the same exam room, now spotless once again, where Hidan hops onto the table and Kakuzu takes the chair by the door.

"Shirt and pants off, please," Sakura says crisply, pulling on gloves.

"All you had to do was ask," Hidan purrs.

Sakura pointedly ignores him, and, behind her, Kakuzu heaves a sigh.

She gathers materials as Hidan strips, tossing his shirt to the ground and kicking off his jeans carelessly. He's wearing a pair of plain black boxer-briefs, and his pale skin is striped and pocked with various scars. Some of them look suspiciously like gunshot wounds.

Sakura douses a cotton pad with alcohol. "Look straight ahead," she orders, approaching his side. "I'm going to clean the wound, and then cut the stitches. If they start to hurt coming out, tell me."

Hidan, thankfully, obeys wordlessly. He's surprisingly docile once she gets started, breath hissing quietly through his teeth as the alcohol stings as she gently cleans the cut on his shoulder.

She gently pulls one of the stitches up with a pair of tweezers, slipping her scissors through the loop and snipping them before gingerly tugging them free from the skin.

"Fuck," Hidan mumbles, "that feels weird."

"We wouldn't have to do this if you hadn't picked a fight you couldn't finish," Kakuzu growls crossly.

"And if you weren't such a fucking piece of shit-!" Hidan starts.

"Stay still, please," Sakura interrupts as she finishes up his shoulder, applying a line of antibiotics and an adhesive bandage to the half-healed wound.

Kakuzu scoffs, and Sakura pauses for a moment to glance at him. "Please don't instigate him," she says flatly.

She moves onto the wound on Hidan's chest, the metal tray next to her slowly filling with lengths of thread. The work is repetitive and methodical, and there's little distraction other than the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

She's since moved onto Hidan's leg wound when Kakuzu breaks the silence.

"The bill," he says suddenly.

Sakura blinks, standing straight and turning to face him, "I'm sorry?"

"It was low," Kakuzu elaborates.

Sakura huffs and turns back to Hidan, leaning down to to carefully pull a stitch from his thigh. "It was," she says. "I try to keep my fees affordable."

Kakuzu hums thoughtfully, and she feels his gaze boring into her back.

"You're work was clean," he continues, unprompted. "Especially given the circumstances."

It sounds… vaguely like praise. She's not entirely sure. It's either that or a threat.

"Thank you," she says diplomatically.

Apparently done, Kakuzu stays silent as she takes care of the last of the stitches scattered on Hidan's body, bandaging each cut neatly.

Sakura stands straight, stretching and rolling your neck. "All done," she says, patting Hidan's shoulder. "Go ahead and get dressed."

"The bill-" Kakuzu starts.

"I don't charge for follow ups," Sakura says.

"Fuck's sake," Hidan says, hopping off the table and yanking on his pants. "You're a fucking saint." The way he says it doesn't particularly sound like a compliment.

Her teeth worry her bottom lip. "Should I ask?" she says to no one in particular.

"What?" Kakuzu says.

Sakura grimaces and bites the inside of her cheek. "How he-" she waves in Hidan's general direction- "is… alive."

"Pact with an old god," Kakuzu says casually, the same time Hidan cheers, "Fucking _Jashin_ , that's how!"

"I… see," Sakura says slowly, (She does, in fact, not see.)

"If that is it, we'll be taking our leave," Kakuzu says as he stands.

"Thanks, Doc," Hidan says with crooked grin. He doesn't bother putting his shirt back on, instead tucking it in the waistband of his pants like a rag. "Maybe I'll stop by. You can give me a _physical_ any fucking time you want."

Despite her best efforts, the snort that escapes her is horribly undignified. "Unlikely."

Kakuzu inclines his head, pausing at the door and letting him companion exit before him. "Doctor Haruno," he murmurs, "I have a feeling our paths will cross again soon enough."

And then he leaves.

Sakura stands in her exam room and stares at the door for the second time in as many weeks.

"Well," she says. "That wasn't ominous or anything."

* * *

A/N: Or, the one in which Sakura is distressed, and absolutely nobody is of any help whatsoever.

Welp. I got steamrolled by inspiration after thinking about VesperChan's work, and this happened in about two hours. Is it shippy? Honestly, I'm not entirely sure myself. I'm just the writer, these things are entirely out of my control.


	2. a misfortune

A/N: This chapter contains violence and attempted sexual assault. Please continue accordingly.

* * *

"Ino," Sakura wheezes into her phone thirty minutes later, pacing around her office, "I think I'm going _crazy_."

"That doesn't surprise me in the least," Ino replies.

" _Ino_."

"Fine, fine, tell me everything."

So Sakura tells her everything. (She leaves out names, though. There's nothing more dangerous in this world than Ino with a name and access to the Internet.)

At the end of her spiel, Ino is silent for several long moments.

"Ino? Hello?" Sakura says hesitantly. "Goddamnit, I told you it was crazy-"

"To be fair," Ino interrupts, "you said it's _you_ that's crazy, not the story."

"Do you believe me, though?" Sakura asks, a little desperate.

"If you were literally anyone else, absolutely not," her friend says. "But it's you, and you're way too boring to come up with something like this."

"Thanks," Sakura says flatly.

"Did you call the cops?" Ino asks.

Sakura blinks. She… hadn't even thought of that. "By law, I'm only obligated to report gunshot wounds…" she says unconvincingly. "And I _really_ don't want to be interrogated. Or… y'know. Get kidnapped by the government." Then, " _Please_ don't tell anyone about this."

"Of course not," Ino says immediately. "Christ, who would even believe me? A guy who's- what, immortal?- comes in and bleeds everywhere, and then his creepy buddy demands you stitch him up 'cus it looks like he pissed off a butcher, and then the next week they come in and one of them starts hitting on you."

"That actually sums it up pretty well."

"As much as I like to run my mouth, I actually do listen to you, you know."

Sakura snorts and slumps into her chair. " _Ino_ ," she whines, drawing out the last syllable. "What do I _do_?"

"Pray you never see them again," Ino says solemnly. Then, "Were they at least hot?"

Sakura pauses considerately. "One of them covered his face, but the other one was alright. He was cussing me out, though."

"The one you patched up?"

Sakura makes an acknowledging noise and sighs. "I can't believe you're asking this. I can't believe I'm _answering_."

"It's probably the shock," Ino replies cheerfully.

* * *

Against her better judgement, when Sakura makes it home at the end of the day and curls up in bed, she grabs her phone and carefully types 'Jashin' into the search bar.

There are scant few results- barely a page's worth- and she gets to reading, cocooned by blankets.

There's not information at all. From what she can gather, Jashin is some sort of pagan god of suffering, and there haven't been any records of organized worship of him for a couple centuries, other than exactly three news reports where men went on homicidal benders of varying degrees of success in the name of "The Lord Jashin." Sacrifices, both human and animal, seem to be a common theme.

It doesn't exactly inspire warm and fuzzy feelings about Hidan.

Sakura turns off her phone and stares blankly at the ceiling and wonders if she should call the police.

The next day is, blessedly, a Sunday, which means Sakura gets the day off and the nurses get to take care of the appointments (carefully arranged so that nothing more intensive than a checkup is scheduled because, apparently, Sakura is Like That).

She wakes up sometime around mid morning, bleary-eyed and hazy, and peacefully shuffles through her morning routine, and notices her phone has a string of unread messages. Thirty-seven, to be exact.

She scrolls through her phone and determines that she hasn't missed a zombie apocalypse in the ten hours she's been asleep, but she _has_ been added to a group chat, and she's been invited to a group dinner tonight.

She fires off a quick confirmation and receives an, "IT'S SAKURA HEYOOOOO," from Naruto, whose excessive volume is not dampened in the slightest by a noiseless medium, and peacefully lazes around for the rest of the morning.

And also the afternoon, but the past week has been awful enough that it's entirely justified.

It's not until five that Sakura actually changes out of her pajamas and into something socially acceptable for company, throwing on a white blouse and a pair of cuffed, calf-length jeans. Her hair gets a cursory brush down and grabs her coat before she slips on her shoes and heads out the door, phone and wallet tucked into her pocket.

She leaves the car because parking would be hell and it's barely a twenty minute walk in a nice neighborhood and takes a leisurely stroll down to Ichiraku's, Naruto's favorite ramen shop. (Naruto's favorite, period, she amends.)

She slows to a scenic amble somewhere around the halfway point, and by the time she makes it, her phone has blown up with another dozen messages, and she waves as she ducks under the curtain.

Naruto, obviously, is there, and so is Ino, each accompanied by Sasuke and Shikamaru, respectively. There's a few more people- old friends from college, mostly, like Hinata and Sai- scattered around all the tables the tiny shop has to offer.

"SAKURA!" Naruto bellows, and is immediately cuffed over the head by Sasuke, who offers a much more subdued glance of acknowledgement.

Sakura snorts as she slides into place next to Ino, who offers a quick side-hug.

"You doing okay?" Ino asks, and Sakura grimaces.

"It's… been a long week."

Ino makes a sympathetic noise, and then brightens. "I got you a gift!"

She presents a small box, about the length of her hand and less than half as wide. It's not wrapped, but a neat bow is stuck on top.

Sakura blinks and takes it, prying off the top and peering inside. A fountain pen, sleek and navy blue and accented with gold, sits on layers of tissue paper.

"Oh, wow," Sakura says. "Ino, _thank you_."

Ino preens, and Naruto abruptly pops out of nowhere with a tolerably loud, "Hey, Sakura!"

He hugs her from behind over the top of the booth, chin on the top of her head, and Sakura lifts a hand to pat him affectionately on the cheek.

"Been staying out of trouble?" she asks, and Naruto pouts.

"What do you think?" Sasuke drawls from somewhere in the distance, and Sakura huffs with laughter.

"Sakura-" Naruto whines, drawing out the last syllable. "The bastard's no help with anything. Ever."

There's a scoff and Naruto whirls around to yell something back, and Sakura laughs as Ino nudges her with an elbow and wiggles her eyebrows outrageously.

And then, between the chatter and reunion hugs, hours pass, food is ordered and consumed, and then the alcohol comes out.

Ino's eyes brighten when she sees the label of her favorite brand of sake and Shikamaru and Sakura make simultaneous, identical sounds of distress.

Ino waves them off. "C'mon guys," she says loudly. "I can control myself."

* * *

She can't.

"I knew this would happen," Shikamaru sighs.

Sakura eyes the drunken, blond puddle. "You're her designated driver, right?"

"Unfortunately." He grimaces. "Damnit. I parked, like, ten blocks away. What a pain."

Sakura squints at Ino dubiously. "I can help carry her," she offers.

The relief Shikamaru radiates is almost palpable. " _Please_."

With a bit of lucky maneuvering, they heft up Ino, who stumbles and flops around like a beached fish.

"Shikaaa," Ino slurs. "Sakura is so pretty. Don't you think so?"

"Sure," Shikamaru says with remarkable patience.

Ino giggles. "Sa-ku-ra," she sing-songs. "Shika is such a- a-" she trails off, big blue eyes unfocusing.

"I know, Ino," Sakura says soothingly.

Between the two of them, it takes thirty minutes to haul Ino the ten blocks to the car. The sun has well and truly set by the time Ino safely belted in, and Shikamaru groans. "Christ," he mutters. "Thanks for the help. Ino can be-" he waves a hand vaguely at her- "y'know?"

"Oh, yeah," Sakura says. "Yeah, I know."

Shikamaru huffs and pats her on the shoulder. "Thanks," he says again. "I gotta get her back before her dad has a heart attack."

She waves as Shikamaru slides into the driver's seat and pulls away from the curb, and waits until he's out of sight before shoving her hands into her pockets and starting the trek back to her apartment.

She pops back into Ichiraku to wave goodbye- Naruto bounds up and hugs her tightly, Sasuke inclines his head, and there are some scattered 'goodbyes' from the few that aren't blackout drunk yet- and then Sakura heads out, tugging the collar of her coat a little higher against the evening chill.

She sets off at a brisk walk, running her thumb over the box in her pocket, a smile quirking at the corners of her mouth.

"Hey little lady!" a man calls to her at the corner. "Nice smile- but I bet that mouth would look better around my cock!"

Sakura's jaw tenses, gaze straight ahead, and walks a little faster and passes him without a second glance.

"Hey, bitch!" the man shouts. "I'm talking to you!"

There's a string of garbled curses and she turns to peek behind her and-

The man grabs her arm and slams her, front-first, into the brick wall of the nearest building. Her skull makes contact first, temple slamming the bricks with enough force that she blacks out for a split second.

Sakura starts struggling the moment she comes to, but the man twists her arm behind her and uses his other hand to grab her by the hair and forcefully grind her head into the wall.

"Here's how this is gonna work," the man says. He smells like jello-shots left to rot in a sewer, and every inch of him feels greasy and dirty and nauseating. "I'm gonna take everything I want from you, and I'm gonna beat you till you can't breathe for being such a prissy, stuck up bitch, and if you make a single sound, I'm gonna slit your throat."

Sakura's hand scrabbles for her coat pocket. "Fuck you," she rasps, thumb sliding off the cap of her brand new fountain pen, and she stabs the man in the side.

The man jerks and stumbles away with a shriek, and Sakura wrenches her newly-christened weapon back. The pen's tip is only so long, so she doubts she did any real damage, but the pain and shock gives her an inch and she takes a mile.

She balls her free hand into a fist, takes two steps to build up momentum, and _swings._

Her fist meets the man's nose with a crack that echoes like a gunshot, and he reels back, losing his balance and falling to the ground.

Sakura starts running, skidding around the corner and sprinting down the sidewalk, trying to figure out whether she should run straight back to her apartment or try to find an open store and call the cops-

And then she crashes into someone who's apparently creeping out of the next alleyway. Sakura falls on her back hard, skinning her elbows as she braces herself so her head doesn't snap down onto the concrete.

"Watch where you're fucking going!" snarls a familiar voice. Then, "You?"

Sakura looks up. "Hidan?" The sleeves of his leather jacket have been pushed up and his arms are drenched in blood, like he's been elbow-deep in someone's chest cavity. She _knows_ what someone who's been elbow-deep in someone's chest cavity looks like because she went to med school.

It's not a good thing that Hidan looks like that.

"Hidan, who are you talking to?"

Oh no. She recognizes that voice, too.

Kakuzu looms over Hidan's shoulder like some terrifying wraith, and his eyes are _definitely_ glowing. There's no way they could be that bright.

"Check it, Kaku-fucker," Hidan says blithely, an sharp, vicious grin splitting his face. "It's the doc."

Belatedly, Sakura notices that Hidan has a knife. It's a wicked-looking thing, curved in an odd s-shape. The blade is black and gleaming with- oh. That's blood. He's tossing it from hand to hand like a knife-juggler, alternately catching it by the handle and blade.

Kakuzu stares down at her. She must be quite the sight, she thinks, sprawled on the ground, bloody pen in hand and blood dripping down her brow.

"Doctor Haruno," he says slowly. "What are you doing here?"

She looks up, blinking uncomprehendingly. "I think I have a concussion," she informs him politely. It's enough of a non sequitur that he pauses.

"You _bitch_!" someone distantly howls, and Sakura blanches.

"I should go."

Hidan's eyes brighten, a smile stretching madly across his face. His gaze settles somewhere over her shoulder.

"Oh, yeah," he says. "You should."

And if Hidan's early smile was vicious, this one is absolutely _murderous_.

She doesn't linger on that, scrambling to her feet and bolting just as she starts to hear the pounding of approaching footsteps.

Sakura sprints all the way back to her apartment, stumbling up the stairs and fumbling with her lock. She staggers in and slams the door shut behind her and locks it, gasping for breath. Her hands her trembling. Dammit, _everything_ is trembling.

She collapses onto her couch, head cradled in her hands, and winces when her hand brushes against the sluggishly bleeding wound.

"What the fuck," she whispers. "What the _fuck_." She sags down into her seat. "What the _fuck_?!"

There's pounding on the door and Sakura bolts up, stumbling back.

"Fuck's sake, open up! It's us!" shouts Hidan- which is not a very compelling argument- and Sakura stays very quiet, eyeing her door knob. It wiggles as he curses.

Kakuzu growls something, but she can't make out the words, his voice too deep to carry like Hidan's. There's the brief sound of a scuffle, and something hits the wall with a thump, and then it goes quiet.

Sakura waits for several moments and is met with continued silence. She heaves a sigh of relief, sinking back down into her couch. She should probably take care of her head wound, but, frankly, she's too exhausted to really care.

She's barely just started to relax when she hears a faint noise behind her. It sounds vaguely like… slithering. She turns slowly.

Sakura can only stare in wide-eyed shock as a thin black tendril creeps up from under her door and flicks open the lock.

The door swings open, and Kakuzu's silhouette fills the doorway.

"Haruno," he says flatly, "we need to talk."

And then Sakura screams.


	3. a matter of clinical convenience

Sakura screams.

Or, at least, she tries to. She gets as far as inhaling before Kakuzu's hand is clasped over her mouth. Her scream comes out as a muffled squeak.

Her first thought is that he's managed to cross the distance between them in the blink of an eye- but Kakuzu is still standing by the door a good dozen feet away, and the hand definitely his, because it's rough and dark and likely bigger than her head.

Sakura's heart seems to have misplaced itself and is currently trying to claw through her throat.

"Are you done?" he drawls, sounding bored and irritated in equal measure. His arm is up, except it isn't quite an arm. Ropy tendrils extend from under the sleeve of his coat and span the dozen feet between her and him, before finally rejoining at the wrist to form a human hand.

Some idle, likely dissociating part of her is glad for that. The alternative would be him wrapping tentacles around her mouth.

Sakura's lungs have been out of air for about four seconds now, and she jerks back from Kakuzu's grip, wheezing in a sharp breath.

"What," she gasps, "the _fuck_."

Kakuzu's hand retreats until his arm is once again of normal length, tentacles or whatever the fuck they are hidden away in his body. (Or wherever he keeps them. Maybe a pocket dimension, because God knows that physics doesn't allow for _that_.) (Sakura also thinks that God likely has absolutely nothing to do with this. Cthulhu seems more likely.)

"Fucking hell," Hidan gripes as they waltz into her house, kicking the door shut behind him. "The fuck's wrong with you?"

" _Me_?" Sakura say, voice rising in consternation. "What the fuck is wrong with _you_?!"

Hidan makes a disgusted noise that sounds more like a cat hacking up a furball than anything a human should be able to make.

And- oh. That's a lot of blood. On Hidan. The knife from earlier is out of sight, but his hands and arms are still caked in red in various states of freshness.

She stares blankly at her floor. "Don't you dare get any blood on my couch," she says flatly.

"Ugh," Hidan says. "Fucking hell, you sound like Kakuzu, seriously."

"Doctor Haruno," Kakuzu grits out through gritted teeth, patience apparently running thin, and roughly shoulders Hidan aside to stand in front of her.

Right. She has two strange men in her apartment who _very well might have committed a murder_ , and she's _threatening_ one of them.

She feels very light-headed for second.

Sakura looks up at him blearily. Kakuzu towers over her, especially since she's still seated. "Yes?"

Kakuzu pauses for a moment, brow furrowed. "You're injured."

"I am," she says agreeably, and lifts a hand to dab at the wound above her brow, half-dried blood sticking to her hair. "I told you earlier, didn't I?"

He nods slowly. "You did."

"Did that fucker from earlier do that?" Hidan chimes in. "Didn't think he had it in him. Squealed like a fucking pig." The comment is punctuated by a cackle as he idly rubs a dried smear of blood along his jaw.

Sakura stares at him for a moment. "Ah," she says. Then, "I feel dizzy."

And then she faints dead away.

* * *

Sakura wakes up on her couch on Monday morning, and the first thing she says is, "I'm late for work."

"That's not your most pressing concern," Kakuzu says, lurking like a shadow not even ten feet away, and Sakura shrieks, flinches, and falls off the couch.

Hidan, somewhere out of her line of sight, snorts with laughter.

"You- what are you-" she chokes out.

"Do you remember last night?" Kakuzu asks, which is probably the worst way physically possible to phrase that question.

" _What_?" she squeaks, scrambling to her feet.

"Y'know," Hidan says, and Sakura turns to see him lounging by her dining table, tapping his temple with a finger. He's clean- mostly. There's some rust-colored flecks along his jaw. "The brain damage?"

Hesitantly, she lifts a hand to her forehead. There's a square of gauze taped just above her brow, and a yellowed bruise on her forearm. She also notices the bloodied fountain pen on her coffee table.

"Oh," she says. "Oh my god."

Hidan scoffs.

"Good," Kakuzu says. "So you do remember. We should talk."

Sakura feels like 'should' part is not entirely accurate. "Okay," she says meekly.

"Sit down."

She sits.

"Now," Kakuzu says. "You're aware that Hidan is unique."

That was certainly one way of putting it. "He should have bled to death," Sakura says, "but he didn't. Because of… his pact. With Jashin."

"Correct," Kakuzu replies.

Sakura swallows thickly and looks at his odd, luminous eyes, remembering, with a lurch of her stomach, his extending arm and… whatever those were. "So… what are you, then?" she asks.

"He's a creepy tentacle fucker," Hidan calls.

Kakuzu flicks his wrist and Sakura catches a glimpse of a flash of silver and suddenly there's a knife buried in Hidan's shoulder.

Hidan curses- " _Motherfucker_ , this was new _fucking_ jacket-" and wrenches the blade out and throws it back in one motion. A black tendril stops it midair, a scant few inches away from Kakuzu's neck, and ferrets the knife back into his coat.

Kakuzu's eyes still haven't left Sakura's face.

"I believe term you would use nowadays is 'eldritch,'" he says calmly, like the past ten seconds hadn't just happened.

There's a pause. "N-nowadays?" Sakura tries hesitantly.

"Kaku-fucker's old as dirt," Hidan says. "Like, what? You're pushing two-hundred, right?"

"Two-hundred," Sakura repeats, expression blank.

"Or close enough," Kakuzu replies, as if two-hundred isn't some ungodly, absurd number of years.

Sakura's suddenly very glad she's sitting, because she might have collapsed by now.

"How have you guys not been _noticed_?" she asks. "You've been… _killing_ people, haven't you?" And, oh, saying it out loud is _so_ much worse.

She one-tenth expecting, nine-tenths _hoping_ that one of them would, "What the hell are you talking about?" or some other phrase of indignance, but-

"Eh," Hidan says. "We're not registered in any databases or anything. We're pretty much off the grid. Even if we did leave DNA or some shit, wouldn't fucking matter."

"You're not exactly subtle," Sakura points out, her tone at odds with her rapidly mounting panic. " _Someone_ must have seen you."

"It's gotten easier, over time," Kakuzu starts. "Oddities are… common."

"People usually think we're hipsters," Hidan cuts in. "Fucking stupid assholes."

She blinks and gives the both of them a once-over. Hidan's wearing a black leather jacket, black leather pants, a pair of sloppily ties combat boots (which are, predictably, in black leather), and, weirdly, no shirt. Kakuzu has a bulky army jacket with a fur lined hood, a black surgical mask, and a pair of frayed jeans. His hair, she notices belatedly, is in a man bun. In any other situation she probably would have found that hysterical.

'I can't imagine why,' is on the tip of her tongue, but Sakura reins it back with a truly Herculean effort. "Oh," she says instead. Then, "Why _me_?"

Kakuzu raises a brow, and Sakura fumbles. "I mean," she clarifies, "why did I have to get involved at all? Why bring Hidan to the clinic if he won't… you know. Die." Also, why risk getting outted like that, she muses silently. She _could_ have called the cops.

"It was a matter of convenience," Kakuzu says coolly.

Sakura bites the inside of her cheek. Convenience. Her life potentially ruined, potentially _in danger_. For _convenience_.

She wants to scream.

"Hidan heals quickly, but fatal wounds will still incapacitate him for a longer period of time if he's not assisted," Kakuzu continues. "Getting medical attention, while not necessary, is convenient. Besides, we have the means necessary to silence you if-"

"Convenient," Sakura says blankly, interrupting what was clearly forming up to be a threat. She staggers to her feet.

"Where the fuck are you going?" Hidan asks.

"Work," she says. "I need- I need to go to work. To help people."

"You're in no position to go anywhere-" Kakuzu starts.

Sakura whirls around, jabbing a finger at his chest- _fuck_ , he's tall- and snarls, "I have a man who's coming in today to get treatment for his stage three liver cancer because he's _too fucking poor_ to go to the hospital, and I'm trying to help a woman who's been having severe menstruation complications and _no one else will treat her_. I'm not staying here because it's _convenient_."

"Your concussion is impairing your judgement," Kakuzu says evenly, even as his voice gets colder.

"Trust me," Sakura spits back. "Any confusion, headaches, or nausea that I have are all because of _you_."

Hidan barks out a sharp note of laughter. "Man," he wheezes, "that's a fucking good one. Kakuzu, you just got _shit on_."

"Shut up," Kakuzu growls, low and frigid.

Sakura ignores them both, because before she was confused and scared but now she's _angry_. She grabs her keys and slips on her shoes- forgoes changing her clothes to save time, and she has some spares in her office anyway- reaches for the door.

"Doctor Haruno," Kakuzu says. It sounds like a threat.

She turns, glaring fiercely. "I will be back at ten in the evening," she says coldly. "We can talk then, if it's _convenient_ for you."

And then she turns and leaves, slamming the door shut behind her.

* * *

Even in a daze, she at least has the foresight to tear the gauze off her forehead, mussing her hair to cover the scab, and changes into the spare clothes she has saved in her office for her frequent all-nighters.

Her work day passes in a hazy blur that feels like an eternity and barely a moment in equal measure. During her lunch break, she stares at the landline, absentmindedly wondering if she should call the police about the two apparent murderers who had taken up residence in her apartment.

She thinks better of it.

"We have the means necessary to silence you," rings in her head, Kakuzu's low, growling voice thunderously clear. Yeah. She's not doing _anything._

Her only reprieve is when she's entirely focused on her patients- old Jirou, the cancer patient, is prescribed heavy painkillers, and Mina is referred to a gynecologist who Sakura personally trusts. A boy comes in with a sprain that needs a simple splint and sling, two more come in for scheduled checkups, and her last patient, a young construction worker with a cut in his side from bumping into the jagged end of a broken pipe, is sent off after a neat line of stitches.

Sakura sits in her office and does paperwork until the very last possible minute, apprehension building in her chest like a lead weight. She never thought a day would come when she would dread going home.

By the time she manages to haul herself away from her desk, the receptionist and nurses have left, an eerie mirror of the night Hidan and Kakuzu first barged into her clinic, but noone barges in as she leaves and heads for her car.

It's half-past ten when she parks her car in the garage, and Sakura buries her face in her hands.

"Oh my god," she mutters, and sucks in a shuddering breath. "Right. Okay. What's the worst that happen?"

She regrets that train of thought immediately.

She bites the inside of her cheek. "Fuck it," she says decisively, and hops out of her car and strides confidently to the elevator.

Her confidence lasts all of thirty seconds, and three floors before her apartment she seriously considers slamming the fire alarm just to buy more time.

The elevator dings cheerfully before she can come to a decision, and, with all the grace of a man facing their execution, Sakura steps out and stumbles the last few feet to her apartment door.

She stares blankly at her keys for a moment, Pachimari charm winking merrily at her from where it dangles from the ring.

"Right," she says. "Okay. You know what? They might not even be there anymore. Maybe they… left."

Her musing sounds flat and hopeless, even to her own ears, and she resists the urge to let her forehead slam on the door.

"Stone the fuck up," she mutters harshly to herself, and then, not giving herself another moment to think, unlocks and opens her door.


	4. magic is real, apparently

Sakura stares.

Her apartment is empty.

She checks all the rooms one by one (and, in a pique of paranoia, checks behind the shower curtain, as if Hidan was lying in wait to shout, "gotcha!" in her face). Empty, all of it.

Sakura doesn't know whether the sudden urge to cry is from relief or frustration.

She circles back to the living room, where there's absolutely no sign of two definitely-not-humans taking residence there, and—

A gleam on the coffee table catches her eyes. The bloodied pen sits, untouched, on the polished wood.

She feels slightly ill.

"Oh my god," she mumbles, collapsing onto the couch. "Oooh my god."

And then she passes out.

* * *

She wakes up at a reasonable hour the next day and takes a much-needed shower and goes to work.

Work happens.

Sakura goes home, and absolutely does not tell Ino about anything that happened in the last twenty-four hours, because Ino absolutely does not need to get involved in these people in any capacity.

This repeats for another three days, and Sakura almost starts to hope that she'll never see Kakuzu or Hidan ever again, and maybe she can start to get some therapy.

* * *

It's Saturday evening when Sakura clambers up the stairwell after a long day of work and opens the door to her apartment, and abruptly finds herself choking back a scream when a massive figure suddenly fills her field of view.

Kakuzu is looming—genuinely _looming_ , like some shadow in a horror movie—by the doorway, and, apparently, waiting patiently.

"Y-you," Sakura stutters.

"We have much to talk about," Kakuzu says flatly.

"Absolutely not," she replies out of reflex, and maybe regrets it a little when Kakuzu pins her with a withering glare cold enough to make her skin prickle.

"You're home is being scried," he says, stepping aside to ever-so-kindly let her into her own apartment, "so we had to leave. Was, at least. There's no sign of it now."

"Excuse me?" Sakura sputters. " _Scried_? What does that even _mean_?"

"It means," Kakuzu says slowly, with no small irritation, "that someone was using magic to watch you."

Sakura takes a moment to process that as she mindlessly kicks of her shoes and shuts the door behind her. "I—" she starts. Stops. Tries again.

"Magic," she manages weakly.

Kakuzu eyes her like she's a intolerably dense child he's been saddled with. "Yes," he says. "Magic."

Sakura stares blankly into the middle distance, and flinches when Kakuzu continues.

"You should take precautions against it," he says, "now that you're associated with us."

Her head snaps up. "I'm sorry?" she says. "I'm _what_?!"

There's the vaguest, briefest feeling of satisfaction that Kakuzu seems a little annoyed with the arrangement as well. Hah. Teaches him to go the 'convenient' route.

"Our presence attracted attention. If the ones after us had any brains at all, they'll know to come after you as well."

"Come after—!" Sakura chokes out, and then gets light-headed. She wobbles the few steps to her couch and her legs promptly give out. She buries her face in her hands.

"I thought the police didn't know about you," she says, muffled by her palms.

Behind her, Kakuzu scoffs. "It's not the police." His tone implies that it's far, far worse.

That is… incredibly ominous and foreboding. Sakura is almost certain she doesn't want to know more.

"You are a useful asset," Kakuzu continues, without a trace of empathy. "So long as you continue to be, Hidan and I will see to your safety."

"My safety," Sakura repeats hoarsely. "What— what about the rest of my life? My job? My friends— are they in danger, too?"

"If you value your life, you will prioritize," Kakuzu says calmly, like he hadn't just dropped that fucking bomb on her, that she's now hunted, that her friends may or may not be in danger, that she's been magically— _magically!_ — spied on. "If you're so concerned about your friends' safety, tell them nothing of this. Tomorrow is your day off, correct?"

Sakura nods weakly.

Kakuzu makes a low sound of acknowledgement. "Hidan and I will be back in the morning," he says, and turns to leave. "I will see you soon, Dr. Haruno."

* * *

At some point in the evening, Sakura sort of just… shuts down. She's not entirely sure how she made it to her bed, but she wakes up there and not on the floor, so she must have managed it.

She stares blankly at the clock on her nightstand. It's five in the morning, but she has a distinct feeling that she won't be going back to sleep any time soon.

She grabs her phone and looks up 'scrying.' Most of the results are DIY witchcraft, who's validity she sincerely questions now that apparently she's met the real thing, but there are some that reference a medieval art of divination or, less commonly, to communicate through reflective surfaces.

So someone had been spying on her through… her mirrors?

Sakura thinks about her bathroom mirror and shudders. This whole thing was getting worse by the minute.

* * *

She's still in bed when someone knocks on the door a few hours, and stumbles out to answer looking worse for wear.

Predictably, it's Hidan and Kakuzu, and she's equal parts relieved and annoyed that they knocked this time, when she knows full well they—or, at least, Kakuzu—could come in whenever they damn well pleased.

"Wow," Hidan says. "You look like shit."

Sakura bristles, but before she can snap back, Kakuzu steps around her and into her apartment, like _he_ was the one who paid rent and slept there.

"You need wards," he says, casually, like he's commenting on the state of her furniture. "Talismans, maybe. Black tourmaline might work."

Idly, Sakura wonders if there was a ward to prevent these two from coming near her.

"I don't know how to get those," she says instead.

"Goblin market," Kakuzu replies. "We'll take you there later."

Sakura doesn't really want to go anywhere with them, especially to a place called the " _goblin market_ ," _what the fuck_.

"Is—is it in the city?" she asks hesitantly.

Hidan snorts loudly. "What, you think we're gonna take a fucking stroll down Main Street and pop into the goblin market?" His mouth is curled in a sneer, red-violet eyes glinting.

Sakura throws her hands in the air. "I don't know shit!" she shouts. "I'm just a normal person! I don't know what you guys are talking about half the time!"

Hidan pauses. "Ah, fuck," he says, and then rounds on Kakuzu. "You didn't tell me she was a fucking _common_. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I'm a what?" Sakura says, trying not to sound offended.

Hidan flaps a hand in her general vicinity. "You know," he says, despite the fact that Sakura very much does not know. "All human."

She blinks rapidly. "You—you thought I wasn't human?"

"I dunno," Hidan says. "Figured you might be fae or a changeling or some shit. 'Cus of the hair."

Sakura self-consciously runs her fingers through the pink strands. "My dad's hair was pink," she says, a little defensively. Then, to Kakuzu, "Did _you_ know I was human?"

"I knew," Kakuzu says calmly.

"And you didn't fucking tell me?" Hidan interrupts loudly.

"I made the error of assuming you had any sort of critical thinking abilities. I won't make that mistake again."

Hidan sputters indignantly, which Kakuzu ignores, turning his attention back to Sakura.

"Most humans spend their whole lives unaware of being like us," he explains. "Cases like you are… uncommon."

"Right," Sakura grits out, sharp and bitter. "Because I was convenient."

Kakuzu's eyes narrow slightly, and Sakura makes an effort to rein in her temper. Right. These people could probably kill her like a fly.

"If I'm 'uncommon,' does that mean there are others like me?" she asks, trying for civility.

"A few," Kakuzu says. "We had an informant living a few cities away."

She tries not to think about "had" too much.

"There's always a few commons running around," Hidan adds, apparently recovered from Kakuzu's slight. "They adapt. Otherwise they die."

Sakura flinches.

Kakuzu notices. "If you follow my instructions, you'll be fine," he says in a way that is absolutely not reassuring in the slightest.

Sakura pauses. "Wait," she says, looking at Hidan. "So, are you— are you not human? At all?"

He grins crookedly, baring his teeth. "Haven't been for a while," he replies, which is a _really_ weird way to put it.

"Then—what are you made of? When I treated you, you looked… human."

Hidan blinks. "Uh," he says.

"Physically, Hidan is still human," Kakuzu cuts in. "He's flesh and bone, same as you. The rest of him, his immortality—that is something else."

"It's Jashin is what it fucking is," Hidan interjects.

Sakura eyes flicker between them. "Ah— Hidan, how old are you?" Kakuzu was almost two-hundred, apparently, but surely not Hidan—?

"Like, fifty, I think? I dunno, hasn't been important for a while. Converted when I was twenty, and looked the same since."

Sakura stares. "Fifty," she echoes. He looks like a college student.

"Eh," Hidan says. He runs his fingers through his hair, slicking back a few stray strands.

"Huh." She blinks rapidly. "Then, Kakuzu?"

"What."

"You—you're not human at all." It's not a question—Sakura had seen those tendrils. _People_ don't have those. They also most certainly don't live for two hundred years.

"No," Kakuzu says, almost agreeably.

Sakura swallows thickly. "Then—ah—how will I treat you? If you get injured?"

He meets her eyes steadily. "You won't."

"I—what?"

"If Kakuzu gets fucked up then he'll just put himself back together," Hidan says casually. "He's done it before. Fucker lost his entire arm and he just stitched it back."

" _Stitched_ —?"

Kakuzu hooks a finger under his surgical mask and tugs it down below his jaw.

Sakura stares.

His mouth is a tangled mass of scars and thick, wiry tendrils.

Kakuzu arches a brow slightly. "Well?" he prompts.

Sakura blinks rapidly. With that one syllable she saw he had teeth, at least, but where a tongue should been was just… a rolling black mass.

"Ah," she offers in response, and tries not to look too relieved when he slips the mask back up to the bridge of his nose.

"If that's all your questions," Kakuzu says, "then we'll head out. The gate opens soon."

Sakura, who very much still had a _fuckton_ of questions, suddenly finds herself with a lot more.

"It's the autumn solstice," Hidan says, which seems like a non sequitur. Sakura looks at him blankly until he continues. "It's one of the only times the gate lets common through to the goblin market."

"It's… sentient?"

"Eh," Hidan says. "It's magic."

Kakuzu reaches into his coat pocket and checks his phone. "It's an hour until 11:11. Get moving."

"Right," Sakura says. "Get moving. To the sentient gate. Okay."

Kakuzu heaves a long-suffering sigh. "We'll take my car."


	5. the goblin market

Kakuzu's car is, as far as Sakura can tell, quite nice. It's sleek and black, and the seats are real leather, which is way fancier than the beat up vinyl of her old sedan.

They hustle her into the backseat, Hidan sliding in next her, presumably to stop her from jumping out of the car at the first opportunity, and Kakuzu taking the wheel. Sakura fidgets with her hands as the car peels out of her garage.

"So… where's the gate, exactly?" Sakura asks.

"Depends," Kakuzu says, which is of absolutely no help whatsoever.

Sakura squints at him. "On what?" she presses.

"On how the gate feels."

Sakura actually can't tell if it's sarcasm or another reference to its magic or sentience or whatever, and reluctantly settles for that answer.

"Ugh," Hidan says loudly, unprompted. "Fucking hell, buying shit with Kakuzu is the _worst_."

"Shut up."

"Fuck _off_ , stitches. You're a stingy piece of shit and you know it—"

" _Hidan_ —"

Sakura becomes increasingly more uncomfortable while Hidan and Kakuzu bicker. She also distinctly remembers Kakuzu throwing a knife the last time he was pissed off.

"Um," Sakura says, and immediately regrets it when the two of them stop yelling and focus their attention on her. (Most of it, at least. Kakuzu's eyes are, thankfully, still on the road.) She swallows thickly. "If the gate changes position, how do you find it?"

Kakuzu fiddles with something under the collar of his shirt and fishes out a rounded stone. It hangs from his neck from a length of fine silver chain, olive green and marbled with pink.

"Unakite pendulum," he says shortly. "A guiding stone." His eyes flicker up to the rearview mirror to glance at her.

Sakura nods mutely.

He drops it back down his shirt and sets his gaze back to the road, and Sakura purses her lips and glances out the window.

Dark, grimy buildings roll by, the streets devoid of life. They're somewhere downtown, she thinks, in the poorer area.

Hidan sighs with exaggerated exhaustion and slouches in his seat, sprawling out and making Sakura press herself against the door to avoid contact.

"You're so boring," Hidan complains, and it takes Sakura a moment to realize that he's talking to her.

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, you," Hidan says. " _Boring_."

"Oh no," she says flatly. "My ego. It's irreparable."

He makes a disgusted noise and sprawls out further.

Sakura notes that he's not wearing a seatbelt the exact same moment Kakuzu abruptly slams the brakes.

Hidan yelps as his head slams against the back of the seat in front of him, and Kakuzu starts to parallel park along the sidewalk.

"Oops," he says tonelessly.

Hidan is spewing out curses like he's getting paid to, which the other man coolly ignores as he pulls out the keys.

"Out," Kakuzu orders shortly, and Sakura obediently unbuckles her seatbelt.

Kakuzu steps out the car, and Hidan doesn't so much get out as roll out, all carelessness and sloppiness, and Sakura hops out immediately after, practically power walking to catch up to Kakuzu's unreasonable stride.

There's a woman leaning on the wall by the alley in front of them. Her hair is a brilliant red, eyes a shade darker behind the glasses perched on her nose.

"Karin," Kakuzu says flatly.

"Kakuzu," she replies, eyes narrowed. Then, "You brought a common."

"Is it really that easy to tell?" Sakura wonders out loud.

"As long as you're not Hidan," Kakuzu says dryly.

"Fuck you," Hidan says sourly, which is starting to look like a common response.

Karin scoffs, crossing her arms. "You know we can't do anything if something happens to her."

"What? What something?" Sakura asks, suddenly extremely concerned. "What's going to happen to me?"

"I don't expect you to," Kakuzu tells Karin, effectively ignoring the doctor's sputtering. "She's our responsibility."

"Hello? Am I going to be in danger?"

Karin turns crimson eyes towards her, head cocked. "What do you think?" she asks. "You're just a little girl, walking into a world filled with things you've only heard of in horror movies and bedtime stories."

"Fuck off and let us in already," Hidan gripes. "You're just— _kuh—_!"

He cuts off abruptly, and it takes Sakura a moment to realize that there is a thin blade is suddenly buried in his throat, blood spurting dangerously close to her, and she flinches and stumbles back.

"Don't forget you're guests here," Karin says darkly.

Hidan gurgles something unintelligible, and a thin black tendril curls around the handle of knife and yanks it out and passes it back to Karin, who accepts it with surprising grace.

"Hidan is an idiot," Kakuzu comments, which is about as close to an apology as he gets. "I am not."

Karin studies him for moment, eyes flickering between him and Sakura. She huffs. "Keep an eye on the common and the idiot," she says, waving them through. "Don't come running to me if something happens to either of them."

Kakuzu nods shortly and walks into the alley, and Sakura cautiously trots in after him, glancing back at Hidan.

The pale man bares his teeth and spits out something that might have been, "Fuck you," if Sakura's lip reading is right, along with some blood, but comes out sounding like a hissing, hollow gargle. Probably because he has a hole in his esophagus. Karin sneers back.

Sakura decides that Karin might not be too bad.

She follows Kakuzu down the alley, which is shadowy a more than a little smelly, and Sakura wrinkles her nose and they pass a dumpster. The noise of the streets sounds muffled and distant, but Hidan's rattling breaths are loud in the narrow space. He's keeping up just fine, and doesn't seem to mind the hole in his throat, but seems a little irritated at the state of his shirt, which is rapidly turning from heather gray to red.

Sakura walks a little faster to catch up to Kakuzu, clearing her throat to get his attention.

"Do I—uh—do I need to take care of that?" she asks, glancing back at Hidan.

"No," comes the answer, promptly followed by, "We're here."

Kakuzu tugs the chain around his neck, and the unakite stone swings from his fingers.

Sakura blinks rapidly. The stone isn't swinging like it should be— it's tilted, like gravity shifted thirty degrees. When it settles, it's pointing down the alley, straining against the chain.

Sakura looks up. There's… a door. It's a dull, chipped red, and a bit grimy, but otherwise unremarkable.

Kakuzu raps his knuckles against the door, sharp and loud, and tilts his head, as if waiting for a response.

There's a muffled ringing sound, and the door— it doesn't open. It _crumbles_.

Sakura stares. Past the would-be door is certainly not a dirty streetside building. There's a massive bustle of people, heat emanating from the doorway like an open oven. The ground is covered in golden sand, vendors shouting their wares from tarped stands.

"That," Sakura starts. Swallows. Tries again. "That shouldn't be there."

Kakuzu's eyes flicker down to her. "Get used to it," he says, the barest trace of amusement in his voice.

He strolls through the gate with long, easy strides, and Sakura hesitates at the border of city and desert for just a moment before scrambling to follow.

There's a lot of… well, _people_ doesn't seem to be the right word. _Almost_ humans. Sakura stares, wide-eyed at the crowd around her. There's a man with the with the lower body of a deer and massive, sprawling antlers, and a woman in a glittering white kimono who floats inches off the ground, and someone else who, for all intents and purposes, seems to be a five-foot tall fox walking on their hind legs. Even Kakuzu's impressive height seems quite unremarkable in this swarm of oddities.

The crowd is so dense and unfamiliar that she's almost tempted to hold onto the edge of Kakuzu's coat just to keep from getting lost. _Almost_.

Then she pauses, glancing back. Hidan is nowhere in sight. In fact, the gate seems to be gone entirely—where the wall had been moments earlier is nothing but an expanse of desert, filled with market stands and rowdy customers.

"Uh," she says, turning back around, "where did the gate go?"

And suddenly Kakuzu is gone.

Sakura freezes.

"Oh," she says meekly. "Shit."

She cranes her neck to try to catch of glimpse of her companion among the crowd, her attempts rendered fruitless by her meager height. Someone shoves last her and she stumbles with another curse.

Sakura worms her way through the bustle to a less busy patch in between a couple of stands. One of them appears to be manned by a hooded figure selling mirrors, and when she glances at one she flinches at the reflection of a corpse that stares back at her. The other stand, ran by a remarkably normal looking man, is covered in little wooden figurines. He catches Sakura's eye and smiles, revealing a pair of _very_ prominent fangs.

Sakura decides he's not that normal after all.

Seconds stretch into increasingly anxious minutes and Sakura begins to list possible causes of her death—one, sucked dry by a vampire; two, trampled by a centaur, deer-taur, of some variant thereof; three—when she fails to notice the shadow that falls over her and somebody bumps into her. It's actually not so much of a bumping into as much as her _bouncing_ off of some incredibly solid moving surface.

Sakura stumbles back, an apology halfway out her mouth, and looks up. The words die in her throat.

A massive man looms over her. He's… bigger than Kakuzu, which she isn't even sure should be physically possible. He's also blue, and he's smiling at her, and his teeth are _very_ sharp.

"Ah," Sakura squeaks.

"Kisame," Kakuzu says, practically materializing behind her, and she jumps. Where—?

He looks down at her disapprovingly. "You were supposed to stay close."

Sakura's—admittedly weak—protests are interrupted as the blue man's— _Kisame's_ —grin widens. "Won't you look at that—fancy meeting a miser like you out here. Who's the little one?"

"Little one?" Sakura echoes, a little offended, and then realizes that she's actively craning her neck back just to see his face. Right. She'll accept that.

"A partner," Kakuzu replies shortly.

Kisame snorts. "Stuffy as always. Where's the nuisance?"

Kakuzu makes a dismissive noise, and the other man barks out a laugh. Sakura deduces, without much effort, that the nuisance is Hidan.

Kisame tilts his head to look down at her, still smiling. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance," he says, bowing theatrically at the waist. At the lowest point, he's still taller than Sakura. Also, his biceps are bigger than her head. "Kisame Hoshigaki, at your service."

"Sakura," she says in a very small voice, and then clears her throat. "Sakura Haruno," she tries again, a little stronger.

"Where's Zabuza?" Kakuzu cuts in. "You merfolk are never far apart. I have business with him."

 _Merfolk_ , Sakura thinks, a little giddily. He's a merman? A… _shark_ merman?

"What business do you have with that grouch?" Kisame asks, and turns to look over his shoulder. "He was right behind me earlier—ah. Right there."

Another man shoves his way pasts the crowd. He's a bit shorter than Kisame, which means he's outrageously tall, and he is, in fact, not blue. His skin is a dusky brown, his hair dark and tousled, and the fact that half his face is hidden by a swathe of bandages does not dampen his stormy expression in the slightest.

"Kisame," the newcomer growls. "I told you not to run off—" and then he pauses, catching sight Kakuzu. His eyes narrow.

"Zabuza," Kakuzu says stiffly. "You still running your little rock store?"

"What do you care?" Zabuza replies, cold and stony, and a staredown begins.

Sakura, growing less comfortable by the second, scoots away from the two.

Her awkward shuffle brings her closer to Kisame, who glances down at her. "I wouldn't worry about them too much," he says. "They just don't like each other."

"I could never imagine," Sakura says, a little dry, and Kisame snorts.

"So," Kisame says conversationally. "A common, huh? What brings you here?"

"A long story," Sakura grimaces.

He winks. "Did it involve Hidan getting beat up?"

She winces and laughs. "More like Hidan getting run through a wood chipper," she says. "I'm—uh—I run a clinic. I stitched him up after a bad fight."

"And they haven't left you alone since," Kisame finishes with a huff of laughter. "Usually how things end up."

She blinks at that. "Usually?" she asks. "Has something like this happened before?"

The merman shrugs. "Once before I think? It was awhile back—some doc helped Hidan in a tight spot. Last I heard of him he was doing some side gig with Kakuzu selling organs somewhere."

Sakura pales. "Oh," she says weakly. "I'm—uh—not that kind of doctor."

"Really? That's too bad. Seems like there's a lot of money to be made."

Kisame grins, showing a great deal of teeth, and Sakura reminds herself that sharks don't like the taste of people.

She prays that the tastes of shark mermen are the same.

Her attention is jerked back to the tall, dark, and bickering pair when Zabuza starts to raise his voice in response to something Kakuzu said—she can't make out the words, but other mer is clearly angry and Kakuzu is clearly being snide.

She also notices that the crowd is giving them a rather wide berth, much to the displeasure of the nearby vendors.

Then several things happen at once—Zabuza growls, fierce and low, and starts to storm off, and somewhere in the distant crowd, a hoarse and wheezy but unmistakably Hidan, shouts, "Kakuzu, you _motherfucker_!"—

—and, finally, an all too familiar voice of her best friend says, " _Sakura_?"

* * *

A/N: hrghaslkdfj its so weird writing naruto fanfic without japanese honorifics,, but i made an executive decision to make this.. not a weab fic bc its a western setting. and i didnt want to mix it up and make it weird. but enough talk! i havent updated in a while, so i hoped you guys enjoyed this chapter!


	6. witchery

Ino stares at her, eyes wide and disbelieving.

Sakura stares right back. "I— _Ino_?!"

"Sakura, you can't be here," Ino hisses, and then her eyes flicker up to Kakuzu and she does a double-take.

Her big blue eyes are suddenly frozen over and vicious, teeth bared in a snarl. " _You_ ," she spits. "What did you do to Sakura?"

"Nothing yet," Kakuzu replies with equal coldness, which does nothing to diffuse the situation.

She bristles and Sakura holds out a placating hand. "I'm fine," she says. "A little rattled, but fine."

Ino relaxes minutely, still glaring at Kakuzu. "God's sake, I've been worrying since you called me about them, but when you never talked about it again, I figured they left you alone…"

Kakuzu cocks his head. "Ah," he says, " _you're_ the one who scried the apartment. I figured it was the work of a Yamanaka witch."

Sakura blinks owlishly. "You—you're the one who's been _peeping_ on me through my mirrors?!" Then, " _Witch_?!"

Ino glances between the panicking doctor and the dark, looming behemoth of a man. "I was… trying to protect you," she says slowly, almost pleadingly.

"And the ' _witch_ ' part?" Sakura demands.

Ino winces. "I perform… magic," she says. "Like the rest of my family."

"Family," Sakura echoes in disbelief. "All of you?"

"You weren't supposed to find out," Ino says. "About… _this_. Most people don't."

" _Commons_ , you mean," Sakura says, and she can't keep the venom out of her voice, even as guilt flashes at her friend's pained expression.

She ignores the pang in her chest and rounds on Ino. "All this time you knew about this? And you _knew him_?" She gestures wildly at Kakuzu. "Why didn't you come clean when I called you?"

"I'm telling you _now_ —he's bad news. Shikamaru—"

Sakura squawks. " _Shikamaru_? He knows, too?" She throws her hands in the air. "Who's next, Chouji? _Sasuke_?"

Kisame perks up the last name. "You know Sasuke? Itachi's little brother? Small world, huh."

She stares. "That—that was supposed to be sarcastic," she manages weakly.

"Small world," Kakuzu echoes tonelessly, looking around. Kisame is hovering, looking immensely amused, but Zabuza is nowhere in sight. "Haruno, come. We haven't gotten what we came here for."

"You're not taking her anywhere," Ino snarls, but freezes when Sakura shakes her head.

"How many?" the doctor asks. "How many of our friends are… like them?"

Ino swallows thickly. "I—I shouldn't—"

"Ino, _how many_."

There's a beat of silence. "...All of them," comes the quiet answer.

"All of them," Sakura repeats. She feels light-headed. "Hinata? Naruto?"

Ino nods.

Sakura takes a step back. "All this time," she mumbles. "I've known you for _years._ How—?"

She stops, exhales shakily. "Let's go, Kakuzu."

Suddenly, Hidan shoves his way past the crowd, stumbling to a stop in front of them. "Fuck's _sake_ ," he wheezes. The hole in his throat has been messily stitched up, but half his shirt is still soaked with blood. "Where the fuck did you go—fuck! Fish-face? That blond witch? What the _fuck_ —?!"

"We're leaving," Kakuzu says flatly.

"Sakura!" Ino calls out, but Kakuzu levels his gaze at her, eyes piercing.

"We have no business with you," he says coldly. "For your sake, hope that we never will."

Ino freezes, every muscle stiffening and practically radiating fear, and Kakuzu makes a low, satisfied sound as he turns to leave.

Hidan glances between Kakuzu and Sakura's retreating backs and Ino, standing stock still, and makes a strangled, exasperated growl before following the former.

They walk in silence, the crowd filling in the distance between them and Ino, and it's not long before she's out of sight.

Kakuzu glances down at her, his strange eyes bright under the desert sun.

Sakura bites her tongue. "How do you know Ino?" she asks.

"Her mentor had a bounty on his head," he answers levelly. "I delivered."

She stares at him, mind whirling. "You… you're the one who killed Asuma Sarutobi when we were in high school," she says. She's dizzy suddenly. Asuma had been an old family friend of Ino, and the whole Yamanaka family had been devastated when he was murdered—Shikamaru and Chouji as well. The police had never found the killer—now she knows why.

"Correct." He meets her gaze, inhuman electric green eyes boring into her own. "Does that frighten you?"

"I was already scared of you," she mutters. "This just makes me angry."

Kakuzu makes a low sound that almost sounds like a laugh.

Hidan pops up from behind them, aiming an elbow at his partner's ribs. "Give credit where it's due, asshole," he snarls. "You didn't kill shit. I had to do all the work."

Kakuzu rolls his eyes and shoves Hidan away, and the cultist snorts and falls into step beside her.

Sakura averts her gaze and stares at the ground as they walk.

Hidan narrows his eyes. "The fuck's your problem?"

"I don't know," Sakura says tightly. "Maybe the fact you killed my best friend's mentor?"

Hidan makes a disgusted noise, crossing his arms.

"It was business," Kakuzu says. "Our kind should know that better than anyone. Even a death wouldn't warrant a grudge like this."

Sakura grits her teeth, but pauses. "What does that mean?" she asks. "That… 'your kind' would know better?"

"A life is not so valuable by our standards," he replies, then tilts his head before his voice takes on an amused lilt. "Or perhaps it is more. The matter stands that assassinations and bounty hunting are both common and profitable."

Sakura stares up at him. "And that's what you do?" she says. "You're an… assassin?"

"I do whatever is most profitable at the time," he says, which is essentially a 'yes.'

She resists the urge to curl up into a ball and scream.

Kakuzu stops. "We're here."

'Here' is a large tent, rather than a stand, made of rich blue cloth and patterned with silver waves on the edges.

Kakuzu ducks in, and Sakura scrambles to follow, peripherally aware of Hidan scowling behind her.

She shivers at the sudden chill as she enters. There's someone kneeling on the ground, clothed in a pale yukata and surrounded by low tables covered in various stones and gems. They're very pretty, and extremely androgynous—she can't discern their gender, although it might be by design. Sakura squints. They're also worryingly pale, lips almost blue.

They glance up, dark eyes framed by long lashes, and tilt their head. "Ah, Kakuzu. I was wondering why Zabuza was late."

"Haku," Kakuzu grunts by way of greeting, smoothly dropping into a kneel that mirrors the other's.

Hidan scoffs and stays standing, loitering by the opening, and Sakura dithers a bit before awkwardly sitting cross-legged on the ground.

"What brings a miser like you to the market?" Haku asks, a faint smile curling the corners of their mouth.

"What do you think," Kakuzu says flatly. "Black tourmaline, tiger-eye, and a quartz orb."

"Warding a home, are you?" Haku hums, slender, graceful hands plucking stones from the tables. They wrap the stones with a white cloth, and ties off the pack with a thin red ribbon. It's wordlessly offered to Kakuzu, who reaches into his coat and places a small package of his own on the table.

Haku seems to accept this as payment, inclining their head, before turning their gaze to Sakura, and she's startled by how entrancingly beautiful they are. Her face goes hot and she feels a little tingly.

Haku offers her a soft smile, and Sakura flushes darkly. "Good luck," they murmur, and she's left blinking as Kakuzu sighs and hauls her to her feet and herds her out of the tent.

"Who was that?" she asks as soon as she regains her bearings.

"An old associate," Kakuzu replies, "and Zabuza's partner."

"No, I mean—" she gestures a bit— " _who_?"

He stares down at her for a moment before realization flickers in his eyes. "Haku is a yuki-onna, of sorts."

"Yuki-onna—the snow-women ghosts from Japan?" Sakura says.

Kakuzu makes an acknowledging noise. "Haku is a man, though," he says. "Rare enough among his kind."

Hidan snorts derisively, muttering something about a "frigid pretty-boy."

Kakuzu ignores him and studies her for a moment. "The charm will wear off in a few minutes," he tells her.

Sakura blinks, dazed. "Ch-charm?"

Kakuzu sends her a _look_. "The infatuation."

She squeaks and hides her face in her hands, cheeks burning.

He snorts at that. "Hidan had it worse, when they first met." It's less of a consolation and more of an opportunity to embarrass Hidan.

There's a sudden influx of profanity, and Sakura uncovers her face just in time to see Hidan attempt to deck Kakuzu in the face.

The taller man sidesteps neatly and trips his assailant with an extended foot, and Hidan face-plants unceremoniously in the sand.

"We have what we need now," Kakuzu informs her soberly. "We're leaving."

Sakura nods, suddenly viciously aware of the sweat that's accumulated on her skin since arriving in the desert. Despite his bulky clothes, Kakuzu shows no such discomfort, but Hidan angrily rubs his face and runs his hand through his sweat-mussed hair, which is now also covered in sand.

Her eyes immediately go to the shoddy stitch work at Hidan's throat. Even though Kakuzu had said she didn't need to take care of that, every inch of her professional pride is balking at the sloppy work.

"If you stay at my apartment for a bit, I'll fix your stitches," she says.

Hidan looks a bit surprised at that, head cocking to the side. "Eh," he says. "Why not."

She lets Kakuzu forge ahead, his massive form parting the crowd ahead of them, and walks next to Hidan.

"...You really killed Asuma," she says hesitantly.

He groans. "You're _still_ on about that?" he grouses. His voice is hoarse and ragged, and he winces with each syllable. "That was, what? Eight fucking years ago?"

"Nine," she corrects him.

Hidan swears again as he's jostled by a passerby, then turns his baleful violet eyes on her. "So a long fucking time ago. Kaku-fucker already said, it was just business."

"...Yeah," Sakura says quietly. "I guess."

He rolls his eyes. "This is why I hate dealing with commons," he gripes. "They're all so squeamish. Those fucking witchy brats, too."

There's a sudden weight on her shoulder, and she glances back at him. He's draped his arm on one of her shoulders, using her as an armrest. "Get over it, seriously," he says, but his tone isn't as rough as his words. "You're stuck with us for fuck knows how long. It's not a big deal."

Sakura wonders if his words are supposed to be comforting. She wonders what it says about her that she actually _is_ comforted, if only a little

She finds herself steered towards some sort of plaza, ringed by colorful tents. There's a marble fountain in the center, spewing vibrantly blue water, and it looks so out of place in the desert that she nearly does a double-take.

"Hurry up," Kakuzu growls, low and impatient, one foot on the edge of the basin, and before Sakura can even begin to question him, he steps into the water and disappears.

Sakura gapes, then scrambles over, staring into the fountain. The water is about two feet deep, the marble bottom smooth and unbroken, and Kakuzu is nowhere in sight.

"Wh-where—?" she says, then yelps as Hidan hefts her up with an arm around her stomach, and suddenly his ass in directly in front of her face as she's slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

"The exit," Hidan informs her cheerfully, and hops into the fountain. There's a splash, and Sakura stomach jerks unpleasant as they plummet into darkness, too breathless to even scream.

There's an impact, and Hidan lands in a deep crouch. She wheezes as his shoulder digs into her stomach and nearly drives the wind out of her.

"Ta-da," he says, straightening, and drops her. She falls to the ground in a crumpled, undignified heap, dizzy and disoriented and scraping her elbows on the cold cement of the sidewalk.

When she finally fights down the queasiness, she looks up. They're back in city, Kakuzu's car not even ten feet away. The owner in question is leaning against it, looking immensely unamused.

Sakura unsteadily clambers to her feet, glancing between the two of them.

"I hate magic," she informs them, and promptly passes out.

* * *

A/N: wahoo, new chapter. one of the more timely updates, too. sometimes i wonder if kakuzu and kisame being my favorite akatsuki members in middle school was the predecessor to my terato/exophilia kink now lol


	7. exhaustion

Sakura wakes up to Kakuzu roughly shaking her by the shoulder.

"Get up," he rumbles, broad frame barely fitting in the doorway of the car. "We're back."

She jolts awake—Kakuzu being the first thing she sees helps—and stumbles out of the car, head pounding.

They're at her apartment building, and she groggily makes her way to the elevator, pressing the button to her floor and only vaguely aware of the two men following her.

She unlocks the door and practically falls onto the couch, cradling her head. "What _was_ that?" she asked. She feels all sorts of awful, and she can only attribute it to the fountain-portal that had taken them out of the goblin market.

"It was your first experience with magic," Kakuzu says bluntly. "Side effects are to be expected."

"Some _warning_ would have been nice," she mutters.

The couch bounces as Hidan plops down next to her, sprawling out and taking up way more space than strictly needed. "Didn't think you'd pass out like such a pussy, though," he comments offhandedly. His voice is still raspy and wheezy from the poorly-mended hole in his throat, and Sakura frowns.

"Let me get my supplies," she mutters, heading it kitchen to grab the absurdly over-stocked first-aid kit from under the sink, splashing some cold water on her face to get rid of some of her fatigue.

Kakuzu raises a brow at the amount of supplies she has, which include, but is not limited to, stitches and needles, splints, oral swabs, a stethoscope, and hospital-grade disinfectant.

She sighs forlornly as she realizes there's no good way to go about this. She'll make do.

She nicks a towel from the bathroom and sits on the couch, the towel on her lap and a tray of tools on the armrest, and instructs Hidan to lay down with his head in her lap.

Sakura surveys the messy stitches with a critical eye, grimacing. "Who _did_ this?" she mutters. The stitches aren't even done with proper thread—instead, it's some course, metal wire.

"Sasori," Hidan replies, with means absolutely nothing to her.

Her frown deepens and she carefully snips off each loop, tugging the wire free of his skin. The wound begins to sluggishly bleed anew, dripping off his neck onto the towel. The wound parts, and Sakura notices, with no small horror, that this 'Sasori' had added a metal stitch to Hidan's perforated esophagus. At the very least, Karin's knife hadn't gone through the other side, but there was still a _hole_ in his _throat_.

"This is going to hurt," she informs him, prepping a fresh needle with dissolvable thread. "A lot. Please don't make any noise, or you'll make it worse. Hold your breath if you can."

She waits for Hidan's acknowledgement before she cuts free the suture and carefully replaces it with her own, patches the gaps with steri-strips, and finally stitches the skin shut on top, slathering the whole cut with antibiotics and wrapping his neck in gauze. Hidan is a surprisingly calm patient, and remains obediently motionless throughout the procedure, despite what had to be crippling pain.

Performing throat surgery on a conscious patient isn't the worst thing she's down in her medical career, but it's close.

Hidan takes a slow, deep breath when she's finished, experimentally swallowing.

"I would suggest not talking or eating solids for at least a week," she says, snapping off her gloves and disposing of them in a sanitary bag, "and it would be even better if you took in nutrients intravenously, but I feel like you won't listen."

Kakuzu snorts, lounging in her only armchair. He's almost too big for it, legs stretched out to accommodate their length. "As if anything could stop Hidan from running his mouth."

"Fuck you," Hidan spits immediately, voice newly raw and hoarse.

Sakura sighs. She is so very, very tired. "If you can, go to a real hospital and get a stent. If you scar at all, you could have trouble breathing and talking in the future."

Kakuzu eyes her medical bag dubiously, as if had he expected her to produce a stent and shove it down Hidan's throat right then and there.

"If that's all," she says, "please leave. I have work tomorrow and I'd like to rest."

And eat. And shower.

"Wards first," Kakuzu says, getting up smoothly. He withdraws the package holding the stones he had bought at Haku's tent.

She perks up slightly at that, interest piqued.

He unties the package, spreading on its contents on the coffee table. There are several pieces of black tourmaline, unpolished and cut into vaguely cylindrical shapes. Its columnar crystals have an iridescent sheen, almost warping the shape with color. The tiger's eye stones are smooth and round in comparison, and a single colorless orb rolls lazily across the table.

He hands her the crystal ball.

She stares at it. "Uh," she says. "Am I supposed to… divine the future or something?"

Kakuzu rolls his eyes. "It's quartz," he replies. "Enchanted to detect dark magic. Keep it in your office. If it darkens, call us." He places a crisp business card on the table, almost identical to the one he had given her those weeks ago, save for the addition of a phone number.

Sakura holds the orb up to the light, admiring the white spiderweb faults that run through the clear stone.

Kakuzu grabs her wrist with a massive hand. "It was also _very_ expensive," he growls. " _Don't._ Lose it."

She nods hastily.

After that, she stays on the couch next to Hidan, twiddling her thumbs as Kakuzu meanders around her apartment, placing little stones on almost every available flat surface. At some point, he disappears into her bedroom long enough that she gets antsy and cranes her neck towards the door, debating the merit of checking on him just to make sure he's not doing anything absurd like going through her drawers.

Kakuzu emerges from her room right before Sakura actually gets up to look for him.

"Done," he grunts. "No one should be able to scry or search for you here."

Mild disappointment at the underwhelming simplicity of the matter mingles with the wave of relief that nobody would be peeking at her through her bathroom mirror in the future, even if the only person that had was—

Ino.

Suddenly, Sakura feels awful all over again.

"I… have some more questions," she says, "but they can wait. I really just want to rest now." It's only early evening, but Sakura is exhausted.

"You should reduce your working hours," Kakuzu tells her. "Get an assistant. If this continues, you'll be no use to anyone."

"You look like shit," Hidan adds unhelpfully.

Mostly thanks to them, she thinks, hating that he's right. Between whatever shenanigans he and Hidan get her into and working full-time at the clinic, she's spread too thin. She could probably get away with working a dozen hours less a week, honestly.

"I'll think about it." she says finally.

Kakuzu nods, making his way out. He pauses at the door. "I hope," he says, head tilted so the barest sliver of the electric green of his eye is visible, "that our partnership with be beneficial."

She swallows thickly. "...So do I."

He shuts the door behind him, and Sakura flops back on the couch, massaging her eyes with the heels of her palms.

"I am so tired," she says, to nobody in particular.

* * *

The next day, she makes a call to her old mentor.

" _Finally cracked, huh_?" Tsunade says, tinny over the phone, and Sakura snorts.

"Just wanted to tell you that I'm opening a position for a doctor that need to complete their residency, so you could send one my way if you have someone you wanna get rid of," Sakura says.

She can almost _hear_ Tsunade roll her eyes. " _I_ told _you that you overwork yourself," she says. "Told you for_ four years."

"Well, I'm listening now."

Tsunade makes an absent-minded sound, and Sakura can hear papers rustling in the background. "I'll keep an eye out."

* * *

She sees neither hide nor hair of Kakuzu or Hidan for several days. She also notices that she's missing her apartment keys, which she has to explain to the landlord, who is very much not happy with this turn of events.

In the middle of the week, she comes back home to an unwelcome surprise.

Sakura stands in the doorway and stares.

Hidan is sprawled out comfortably on her couch, looking for all the world like he has every right to be there.

"How did you get into my apartment?" Sakura asks, voice rising. Then, while admittedly not as significant but equally upsetting, "Are you _eating my food_?"

Hidan wordlessly holds up her keyring, charm and all, and continues to stuff his face with the ice cream that she had very much bought for herself.

"My _keys_ ," Sakura says. "You stole them! I _need_ those!"

"For what?" Hidan asks around a mouthful of food.

"To get into my apartment you _ugly bastard_."

He makes an offended noise. " _Ugly_?" he echoes in disbelief. "I'm probably the hottest piece of ass you've seen all year, you _tasteless heathen_."

Sakura makes a strangled noise of rage and storms over, yanking the carton from his hands.

"Next time you get fucked up, I'll let you _bleed_ ," she hisses, then snatches the keys from his still-outstretched hand.

Hidan looks at her with a very odd expression, then blinks at her owlishly.

Sakura suddenly feels very uncomfortable. "What?" she demands, inching away.

"That's kinda hot," he says, staring directly at her.

She flushes hot and furious, and nearly overturns her couch in her haste to shove him off. " _Get out of my apartment_!"

"Fuck's sake, cool it!" he yelps, landing on the floor in a crouch. He dusts off his denim jacket as he rises—Sakura notices, belatedly, that he hasn't deigned to wear a shirt, but at least he's dressed in something marginally less conspicuous than his all-leather fare—and pats down his pockets. "Where the fuck—? Oh, here."

He hands her a blank envelope. "Kakuzu said to give you this."

She takes it gingerly, like it might blow up in her face. "...What is it?" she asks dubiously.

"The fuck would I know? Ask Kakuzu."

Her eyes dart between the paper and him, before her curiosity finally wins and out and she tears open the envelope with her newly-reaquired keys. Hidan hovers at her shoulder, looking down with mild interest. He's actually not that much taller than her, a couple inches at most, but he's certainly broader—made all the more evident by his apparently disregard for personal space.

She blinks. "It's a check," she says. She flips it around to check the front, and her eyes bug out. By her ear, Hidan whistles lowly.

"Didn't know the bastard had it in him to part with this much money," he says, now using her shoulder as an armrest.

"Wh-why?" Sakura sputters. It's not… an _extravagant_ amount, but it's enough to make her do a double take. Probably the amount of the paycheck of a normal doctor—one that didn't self-fund a majority of her clinic.

"Because you're useful?" Hidan suggests, which is almost a compliment.

She stares at the numbers for a little bit longer before she tucks it away back into the envelope. "Is it… safe for me to accept this?"

Hidan shrugs. "Probably," he says. Not the most inspiring, but…

Against her better judgement, she slides the check back out just enough to see the sum.

"...I'll take it," she says finally, then promptly kicks Hidan out of her apartment.

* * *

Later that week, Sakura receives a residency application for one Kabuto Yakushi.

* * *

A/N: just a fun lil chapter this time. ive had the short ending bit with sakura and hidan floating in my notes since like. chapter one, so im glad theres finally a place to put it.

alt title: in which sakura becomes increasingly tired and needs a nap. maybe two.


	8. residency

Kabuto Yakushi is a couple years older than her, which is surprising.

"It took me a couple tries to get through organic chem," he admits bashfully. "Ended up graduating a year late, and then I had to take some time off to take care of a sick relative, too."

Sakura nods, discreetly fixing her hair. Kabuto is also… kinda cute. He's friendly, smiles easily and often, and his round glasses are charming, in a dorky, boyish way.

She's been showing him around the clinic, telling him about what duties to expect and the types of injuries and illnesses they treat and when to refer a patient elsewhere. Kabuto has been nothing but pleasantly engaged, displaying genuine interest in the work.

"Here's the stock room—we take inventory at the beginning and end of the day, so it's important to record if your using something or if something needs to be replaced," Sakura says, leading him around. "And here's the filing room—if you have paperwork issues, you can come to me or the secretary. Break room's over there, if you need coffee."

"I prefer tea," Kabuto quips lightly, a smile softening his eyes.

She huffs a laugh. "Cabinets have plenty of room," she replies.

He chuckles softly, following her readily as she finishes off the tour in front of her office.

"That's pretty much the whole of it," she says. "Not much, but I'd like to think we do good work here."

"Doesn't seem so much of a 'we' as just you," he comments, and she laughs a little.

"You're pretty much free to go—your first real shift is next week, but feel free to drop by or call if you have any questions," she says.

Kabuto smiles. "Of course. Thank you, Dr. Haruno. I'll be in your care."

—

The next few days pass with little action—Kakuzu stops by briefly to pin a talisman to her wall with a gravelly warning not to touch it, and Hidan, somehow, breaks into her apartment again, and, more offensively, _steals the fucking food out of her fridge_ , and if it weren't for the fact that she had _just_ stitched up his throat she very well might have punched him in it.

Kabuto, fortunately, adjusts quickly to clinic life, and her workload practically halves itself overnight—she finds herself sleeping a full eight hours for the first time since long before med school. She could _kiss_ the man.

Of course, like all moderately tolerable things in her life, it's disrupted very quickly, and it starts with Kabuto's innocent request for a copy of some paperwork at the end of the work week.

"Oh—of course," Sakura says, like a fool. "It'll just take a sec, follow me."

She waves him in as she makes a bee-line for her desk, and Kabuto takes a seat by the door and looks around the room with dark eyes.

Sakura's brow furrows as she checks her drawers, looking for the folder, and the quartz orb she'd nearly forgotten about rolls towards her. She absentmindedly bats it away, finding the paperwork—and then she freezes. Looks again.

The quartz is pitch black.

"Dr. Haruno?" Kabuto says. "Is something wrong?"

"Hm? Oh, not at all," Sakura replies, forcing her voice not to waver. She hopes that the smile she pastes on her face is convincing. "I just remembered I need to make a call. Here's the paperwork— would you mind waiting here for a couple minutes?"

The smile that Kabuto sends her is perfectly pleasant. "Not at all."

She keeps her mask firmly affixed until she's well out the door, and even then she doesn't even let her breath hitch until she's stepped into an empty exam room and locked the door behind her.

She fumbles for her phone and calls Kakuzu, heart in her throat as it rings.

" _What_?" he answers gruffly, and Sakura has never been more relieved to hear his voice.

"The quartz turned black," she blurts immediately. "It's the new nurse, I didn't see it at first, but he's the only one who's been in my office all week so it has to be him—"

Kakuzu curses immediately, at nothing in particular at first, and then at her, and she can faintly hear a flurry of movement on his end.

" _Idiot woman_ ," he growls. " _I'll be there. What's his name_?"

"Uh—K—Kabuto? Kabuto Yakushi, he worked with my old mentor from my residency—"

Kakuzu curses again, louder this time, and Sakura flinches and holds the phone away from her ear.

" _Of all the shifty_ bastards—" he spits, and she winces. She's seen Kakuzu when he was pissed, but this is the first time she's heard him _angry._

" _Do_ not _raise his suspicions_ ," he orders. " _Do nothing to aggravate him. Understand_?"

Sakura nods frantically, and then realizes her error and forces out a weak, "Yes."

The line clicks as he abruptly hangs up, and her knees give out and she slides down the wall until she on the floor.

"Oh my god," she says, which is a sentiment she's rapidly becoming familiar with.

—

She takes about another thirty seconds to stop hyperventilating and slowly forces herself up, then another forty-five to make sure her legs aren't wobbling before she finally leaves the room and makes her way back to her office. Her receptionist is already gone for the night, she notes absentmindedly. One less potential casualty, at least.

Kabuto is still reading over the paperwork when she gets back like nothing is amiss, and she sits at her desk and mechanically pulls up a stack of her own papers, staring blankly at the words before mindlessly scrawling her signature at the bottom.

"It seems everything is in order," Kabuto says cheerfully, breaking the silence. "Do you mind if I make a photocopy of these for my own records?"

"Of course you can," Sakura replies, miraculously without stuttering. "Do you need anything else while you're at it?"

"This is it, I believe." His smile is warm and entirely genuine, and even though she's looking for it, she can't find a speck of malice in his expression. "Thank you, Dr. Haruno."

She nods, not quite meeting his eyes, and he leaves her office. She slumps onto her desk as soon as he's out of sight.

Of course her _one_ competent resident is evil, she laments. Of course he is, because that's what life has planned for her, apparently.

She straightens and throws up her facade of professionalism when she hears his returning footsteps, and Kabuto pops back in, genial as ever.

"Thank you again," he says, handing back the original copy.

She saved from a forced, cordial answer by the distant sound of the clinic door slamming open, and Kabuto frowns. "An emergency?" he asks, and peers out her door.

He ducks immediately, and a dagger sails past him, close enough that it clips the ends of his silver hair before it lodges itself in the wall.

"Oh," Kabuto says mildly. "Kakuzu. What a surprise. Here for a checkup?" He steps out of the office like he's greeting a patient, the perfect picture of the ideal bedside manner.

Kakuzu narrows his eyes. His hand shoots out, arm lengthened by black tendrils, but Kabuto sidesteps neatly and the blow lands on a nearby cart, overturning it and sending it skidding.

Kabuto clicks his tongue. "Really," he says. "I only just started my residency here, so if you could refrain from—"

"Shut up." Another swing, fist sailing through the air like a wrecking ball, forces the other man to dive to the side. "Why did Orochimaru send you here?"

The silver-haired man pops back up, glasses slightly askew. "Orochimaru? What does he have to do with this place?" He seems genuinely, if only mildly, perplexed.

Kakuzu pauses. Kabuto smiles.

"Oh?" he hums. "Is there something of interest here? Or _someone_?" His dark eyes flicker towards Sakura for a brief moment. "I just wanted to pursue my residency, but to think I stumbled upon something far more interesting."

Kabuto's earlier warmth is gone, eyes like chips of black obsidian. His gaze is cold and clinical, stripping her like a specimen to be dissected.

Sakura shivers.

"Shut. Up," Kakuzu growls. He shrugs off his coat with tight, stiff movements, and black threads burst to life from back, shredding through his shirt. The black surgical mask falls from his face, tentacles dripping from his mouth like live things.

Sakura breath catches in her throat. All across Kakuzu's body—arms, shoulders, chest—are covered in thick black stitches, and his tendrils burst through them like butchered seams.

It's almost like, she thinks, his skin is the human-shaped container for something far darker—a rag doll stuffed with eldritch monstrosities.

Kabuto's eyebrows rise, and for the first time, something resembling concern flickers over his face.

"Stay away," Kakuzu says, low and gravelly, and Sakura flinches, not quite sure who he's directing the order at. His voice echoes inhumanly, rough and distant like its not coming from him at all.

Kabuto tsk's disapprovingly. "Playing with commons is beneath you, isn't it?" he comments. "I'd expect it from your partner, but you? I've always figured you were more like Orochimaru in that regard, at least, knowing to separate your experiments from your tools—"

He cuts off as Kakuzu sends a volley of tentacles his way, and the other man barely manages to dash out of the way, the force of the attack shattering the linoleum.

(Distantly, Sakura bemoans the state of her clinic. Also, how the _fuck_ is she going to explain this to Tsunade?)

Kabuto skids to a stop, grabbing a scalpel from the scattered supplies on the floor, and flings it at his attacker. Kakuzu doesn't so much as flinch, a black thread batting it away before it streaks forward and wraps around the silver-haired man's neck, who chokes out a gasp as he's lifted into the air, the tips of his toes barely brushing against the floor.

Kakuzu twitches. "I should kill you," he rumbles.

"You certainly could," Kabuto says agreeably, remarkably calm for someone with a rapidly tightening noose around their neck, "but I have it on good authority that my bounty is non-existent. Your under enough scrutiny as it is—adding wanton violence to your record would hardly be the smartest move."

The other man still doesn't move, and Kabuto's smile falters for the briefest moment.

"Perhaps," he says, faintly wheezy, "we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement pertaining to your latest acquisition."

It takes Sakura a moment to process that 'acquisition' probably means _her_.

"I am simply here to complete my residency," he continues. "It would be in both our best interests to divert surveillance from her, would it not? With my contacts, it would be a simple matter to shield this place from… outside interference."

She _really_ doesn't like the way he phrases that, and equally does not like how Kakuzu seems to be actually considering the offer.

"And Orochimaru?" Kakuzu says.

"All he needs to know," Kabuto soothes, "is that I am a resident."

There's several moments of stifling silence before, slowly, the black threads unwind themselves from Kabuto's throat, and he sucks in a grateful breath, falling to his knees.

Sakura is rather distressed, because this apparent plan means that Kabuto is going to continue staying at her clinic, and while she had liked him for the five days that he had worked there, she had just been exposed to a very different side of him that she doesn't like quite as much.

"Um," she says very quietly, and is promptly ignored.

"We'll talk terms," Kakuzu says. "Tomorrow, midnight. Neutral ground." He shrugs his coat over his ruined shirt as the tentacles retreat beneath his skin.

"Of course," Kabuto replies pleasantly.

"My clinic," Sakura says despondently, staring at the broken tiles at their feet.

Kabuto smiles regretfully, and, like slipping on a mask, he's resident nurse Kabuto, not terrifying assassin Kabuto. "My sincerest apologies, Dr. Haruno," he says. "I can have it fixed by tomorrow, if you'd like."

Sakura wonders, briefly, when her life got so damn _awful_ , and politely says, "Yes, please."

"Go home," Kakuzu interrupts. "Hidan will be there."

She glances up, but he's not looking at her, lambent eyes focused on the other man.

"...Okay," she says slowly. She backs away, and Kabuto offers a parting wave.

When she peels out of the parking lot, she can't help but look back, and dread gnaws at her stomach.

A/N: i hate to be that guy but I actually really like kabuto and orochimaru,,, kabuto is also really fun to write bc he's such a slimy two-faced bastard hrfsahkljdf


End file.
